Sting and Stewart in award stoush

Sting has hit back at a bitter attack from fellow musician Rod Stewart by offering one of his numerous Grammy awards to the Scottish rock star.

Stewart, 58, and currently riding high in the British album charts, complained that he had been consistently passed over by the music industry's premier awards in favour of rivals such as 52-year-old Sting.

"They tend not to give it to the British unless you're Sting. The sun shines out of his arse -- a pure jazz musician, Mr Serious who helps the Indians," Stewart said in an interview with British magazine Radio Times last week.

"It's astounding I've never won one," he told a news conference.

Sting responded generously.

"I think he deserves one, I really do," said Sting, who has won 14 Grammys as a soloist and with the group Police.

"You know, Rod hasn't received a Grammy. I'm thinking of sending him one of mine," he said.

Sting was in Hong Kong to promote his new album, Sacred Love, conceived in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

At the news event Sting performed three songs, including the title track from his new album, which has been recorded in the new Super Audio CD format - a new multi-channel surround sound technique developed by Sony Corp and Philips Electronics.